Continuing the series regarding installing Windows 7 over RHEL/CentOS 7 PXE Network Boot, where in the first part I have only covered setting up prerequisites on PXE Server, now in this article will be going to discuss how to build WinPE ISO image with the help of Windows Automated Installation Kit on Windows and then move the build image to PXE Server TFTP default location to access and install Windows 7 over PXE network.

Step 2: Create WinPE ISO Image on Windows 7

3. After Windows AIK software is installed on your system go to Windows Start -> All Programs -> Microsoft Windows AIK -> right click on Deployment Tools Command Prompt and select Run as Administrator and a new Windows Shell console should open on your screen.

Create WinPE ISO Image

4. Now it’s time to build the Windows 7 Preinstallation Environment (WinPE) x86 boot image by issuing the following commands on Deployment Tools Command Prompt.

Step 4: Boot and Install Windows 7 over PXE Network on Client Side

8. In order to boot and install Windows 7 via network and PXE server, first instruct the clients machines to boot over network by modifying BIOS device boot order or hit a custom key during BIOS post to select a network boot device.

After the first PXE prompt appears press F8 and Enter keys to continue and then select Install Windows 7 from PXE menu.

Select Windows 7 from PXE Menu

9. After WinPE image finishes loading, a customized minimal image of windows starts and a Command Prompt window will be displayed on screen.

Loading Windows 7 over PXE Boot

Starting Windows 7 over PXE Boot

Windows 7 Command Prompt

10. In order to install Windows 7 over a Network Share, in the Command Prompt window, map the Windows installation sources (use the architecture
path you want to install), configured on PXE Samba share directory, as a Network drive.

Then enter network drive share, by specifying the drive letter, and run setup.exe utility. Use the following commands to start the installation process (replace the samba network address location and network drive letter accordingly) and continue with the installation process as you normally do it from a local DVD media.

net use z: \192.168.1.20\install\x32
Z:
setup.exe

Enter Windows 7 Installation Source

Choose Windows 7 Language

Select Drive to Install Windows 7

11. If you want to install the 64-bit architecture, map the specific 64-bit network path using a different letter and continue the installation procedure by following the same steps explained above.

net use y : \192.168.1.20\install\x64
Y:
setup.exe

Choose Windows 7 Install Source

Select Windows 7 Home Basic

12. In case the installation sources are configured with authentication use the following command switch to specify the username.

net use y : \192.168.1.20\install\x64 /user:samba_username

13. After both architectures installation sources had been mapped you can change between them by switching to the designated network drive letter as presented in the screenshot below.

Change Network Installation Source

Thats all! Performing Windows installations over PXE and network has a lot of advantages, such as cutting down the installation time drastically, allowing the installation process to take place the same time on multiple machines without the need to use a physical installation media.

You can also setup multiple Windows Installation Sources (using Windows or Samba shares) on different machines over your network to avoid a bottleneck on RHEL/CentOS PXE Server, in case you install Windows on multiple machines the same time, and direct the network drive maps to use those specific network sources on installation process.